


One Stitch At A Time

by genarti



Series: Lunar Base ABC [3]
Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Friendship, Gen, Jobs, Kevin (sort of), revolutionary plotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1375780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly and Musichetta, and a couple of different kinds of work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Stitch At A Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsane/gifts).



Feuilly's workshop was a small cubby near the end of a long corridor. Two doors down, the bustle and mechanical hum of the shop which built and repaired the vital equipment of lunar life: the insulated and airtight atmo-suits used to venture outside the base, the assorted protective apparel required by those who worked with dangerous chemicals or atmospheric scrubbers or nutrient recycling. All of it heavy-duty work. Each task required specialized equipment, great precision, multiple checks.

Feuilly's work was humbler. It brought no safety to its wearers, but it brought pleasure. Just as important. He was a tailor; he repaired, altered, and refashioned clothing. Occasionally he made it. More often, he preserved old pieces.

Neither cotton nor wool nor linen could be grown on the moon with any efficiency, and replicating synthetic fabrics used valuable resources. Far better to sell and re-sell, to mend and rearrange, to tailor and personalize, until at last the useless scraps were tossed into a rag-bin and put to still other purposes in the great industrial cycle of a lunar base.

Feuilly was an artist at this. He earned his rations with his needle.

He was seated now on his low stool, bent over a lady's shirt gone threadbare at the elbows and torn at the cuff. A decorous chime from the speaker by the door made him look up. "Come in," he called, overlapping the whoosh of the door sliding into its recess, and tucked his needle into a fold of fabric.

Musichetta's artfully undercut tousle of curls poked through the doorway, followed by her grinning face. Feuilly rolled his eyes, picking up his work again. "I thought you were a customer. Come on in, of course."

"You might have been with one," Musichetta defended herself. She bounded lightly inside, letting the door close again behind her. "Anyway I can't stay long, I'm just on break."

Feuilly cut a surprised glance at the timepiece over the door.

"Yeah, I'm on late shifts all this week. So I won't be able to make the reading group for a few days. I wanted to tell you, though -– Enjolras wanted some new reading material? You can tell him one of my kids has access to a bunch, and she'll share. Some of it's probably out of print, but not everything."

Feuilly straightened sharply. Reading material meant blueprints, access codes -– "Musichetta, that's _fantastic_. I'll tell him first thing. She'll pass it on through you?"

"Next downcycle she'll drop it in my account, yep. I'll give you guys more details when I won't be repeating myself, but I wanted to let you know." The details would come, more importantly, when they were in a place where they could be certain all surveillance was blocked or baffled. "I know you're all getting bored talking about the same books all the time."

Feuilly's grin was a thin, fierce slice. It would have startled any number of people who came to him for a tailor’s friendly competence and dainty stitchwork, and never looked beyond the job and the price to the man beneath. "Some of us are more patient than others. No fear, though. We'll spend as much time as a book's worth."

Musichetta snorted. "I just bet _you_ will. I remember the hour you spent telling me about the politics behind Sputnik."

"See? You remember it now."

"No, I remember you telling me about it." Musichetta grinned to take away any sting -– though Feuilly knew that she had a sharp mind and a keen memory, and probably remembered every word he'd said at the time too. "Anyway, I'd stay, but I want to grab a Tang before I have to get back. We've got three atmo-suits to fix, and they always take so much boring fiddling -– and Marta's out sick, so we're short. You want anything from the caf?"

"Coffee, if it's cheap?"

"I owe you for Friday's drinks anyhow. Coffee it is." She pushed off the wall, controlling her bounce with a lunar native's ease. Musichetta was diligent about doing her required exercises and grav time, and besides that had a fondness for exercise dance that Feuilly quietly found baffling; all of that gave her strong muscles for a bounding lightness even by lunar standards. "Good air, Artisan Kevin."

Feuilly laughed under his breath. "Good air, Supervisor Jeannette."

**Author's Note:**

> Feuilly's first name is not actually Kevin, but then Musichetta's name is not actually Jeannette either. (Her parents didn't name her Musichetta either -- that's a nickname that stuck -- but she got into the habit of going by that nickname and not by her surname when she worked in the same workshop as her sister. Which she may still do, I dunno.)


End file.
